Notebook: With Palmer, UO special teams are in good hands

Jeff Palmer has proven to have pretty good hands for Oregon, whether he’s firing snaps back between his legs on placekicks or catching a pass on a fake, this past week at Stanford.

Palmer, the Ducks’ junior short snapper, caught a pass from tight end David Paulson for a two-point conversion following Oregon’s first touchdown against the Cardinal. The play had worked every time the Ducks practiced it over the previous two weeks, Palmer said — but there was a catch.

“I don’t think we ever ran it in practice against actual people,” Palmer said. “It was always on air, so we really didn’t know what to expect.”

The play began out of the Ducks’ usual two-point formation, with the offensive line split out in a “swinging gate” formation and Paulson flanked behind them. Palmer remained in the middle of the field to snap, with kicker Alejandro Maldonado and holder Jackson Rice.

The decision to run the play or shift the team into a placekicking formation is up to Rice, and Palmer said the Cardinal had the play covered well enough that Rice could have justified settling for the kick. But he didn’t, and Palmer sent a direct snap to Paulson — a high school quarterback — before fading toward the back of the end zone, where he wrestled with a defender for the pass.

In order to be an eligible receiver for such plays, Palmer recently switched from jersey No. 59 to No. 38, once worn by walk-on linebacker Mike Garrity. Due to an outdated roster, the official stats from Saturday’s game initially listed Garrity as having received the pass, which was widely reported over the weekend.

Of course, as a short snapper, Palmer is accustomed to being overlooked, since the position is usually only in the spotlight after an errant snap leads to a missed kick. Palmer was the snapper at Arizona in 2009 when holder Nate Costa somehow handled a bad snap well enough for Morgan Flint to make a kick in a game the Ducks eventually won in double overtime.

“Ever since I had that bad snap at Arizona, it’s my goal never to have a bad one again,” said Palmer, adding that he misfired once last season, against New Mexico. “My goal is to stay perfect, that’s all I can really do. That’s my goal.” Click here for the complete notebook.